Nato settles on tally of 4,000 NLA weapons

THE Macedonian government must accept that no more than about 4,000 weapons would be surrendered to Nato collectors by the rebel National Liberation Army, it was told yesterday.

Demands for the handover of up to 85,000 weapons were hopelessly unrealistic, Brig Barney White-Spunner, the operational commander of the British-led force, told the government in Skopje.

On Thursday, he held a three-hour meeting with Ali Ahmeti, the NLA's political leader, during which details of how many weapons would be handed over and where were agreed. The NLA insisted that it had only about 2,300 weapons.

Western intelligence assessments put the figure at up to 5,000, and Brig White-Spunner made very clear to Mr Ahmeti that the rebel offer was not credible. The compromise figure the two men agreed is thought to be somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 and the government has been told, albeit tactfully, that it has no choice but to accept that figure.

In a move expected to anger many of Macedonia's Slavs, Maj Gen Gunnar Lange, the Danish general in charge of Nato forces there, said bluntly that they would have to accept what the rebels were prepared to give up.

He said: "The number they have declared they are willing to hand over is the number that I am going to collect."

One Macedonian official, seeking to defuse the situation, said: "I don't think the Macedonian government is in a position to make any kind of ultimatum or set a minimum of weapons that must be collected. There's no doubt that Nato's word on the estimate will be final."

But sources close to the negotiations said they expected Ljubce Boskovsky, the hardline Interior Minister whose office issued the figure of 85,000, to cause trouble over the compromise figure.

Mr Boskovsky, who had links with the dead Serb paramilitary leader Arkan, is also thought to be behind a blockade of the main border crossing into Kosovo at Blace. The blockade has forced Nato to bring in by air a number of troops and pieces of equipment.

Nato has put pressure on the Macedonian government to reopen the border crossing. But early yesterday it remained blocked by razor wire, mounds of earth and a number of articulated lorries parked diagonally across the road.

At first light, there was no sign of the Slav demonstrators who say they were forced out of their homes by the NLA. But at 9am about 50 Slavs arrived by bus and began queuing at a motorised caravan to be given food.

One man who refused to be identified complained that he had been forced out of his home in the village of Lesok, east of Tetovo, where the church of a 14th-century monastery was blown up earlier this week.

Western sources close to the negotiations said they believed that Slav opponents of the peace deal were behind the bombing. The NLA had not attacked a church or a civilian target before, one pointed out.

He added: "They [the Albanians] have fought a pretty clean, pretty honourable insurgency. By Balkan standards they have been almost angelic."

The professional nature of the bombing has led some observers to suggest that Mr Boskovsky's special police may have been involved. They have been accused of starting many of the sporadic incidents of shooting that occur nightly.

Members of the Pathfinder Platoon of 16 Air Assault Brigade, watching the mountains around Tetovo where many of the most serious ceasefire violations have taken place, reported seeing an hour of heavy shooting early yesterday.

Cpl Mick Brooks, 27, part of a six-man team manning an observation post close to Macedonian positions at Zelino, five miles west of Tetovo, said their role was to monitor ceasefire violations.

Cpl Brooks said: "We have been doing this for four or five days. We are fairly relaxed about the situation here, although up in the hills last night we heard shelling - mortars and heavy machine-gun fire."